Spanish Dreams
by ami-chan200
Summary: Slightly AU. Martin has a migraine and migraines make Martin say funny things.


This is AU. Sit back and enjoy the ride, strange as it may be; I would never have written it, except the idea kept plaguing me. As some of you may be shocked to see, this is not slash. I know, it does sound like it would be, doesn't it? Very sorry. Next time.

Spanish Dreams

by Ami-chan

Martin was unhappy. He was unhappy with how their latest case had ended and really, who wouldn't be? It was always a bad situation when they ended up finding a body instead of a living, breathing person and it was even worse to let the family know about the death of their loved one. Martin was also generally unhappy because he lacked sleep, his coffee was now tepid and damned if he didn't hate the evils of tepid coffee, and he was starting to feel the beginning of a spectacular migraine coming on. Great, perfect, wonderful.

Even better, he didn't have his pills with him. (1) Had to forget to bring those in when he used up the last one in the bottle he usually kept in his desk, didn't he? Wonderful, lovely. The day couldn't get any better and he still had to finish up this damned awful paperwork so that –

"Martin Fitzgerald!"

He blinked and looked up, staring blankly at Danny who was watching him with that bemused grin of his that made him wonder what inside information Danny had that he didn't know about. Like how to smirk like he had inside information that he didn't have. He so needed to learn that how to smirk like that. "Yes?" A glance to the side showed that Vivian was watching him, too, and now so were Jack and Sam who had apparently stopped talking at Danny's rather loud exclamation.

In fact, there were several other agents loitering around also staring in interest. Danny did tend to attraction attention like that. Must be the damned smirk. Martin could smirk if he wanted to. He tried. It just didn't look as good on him as it did on Danny. Must practice smirking.

"You were speaking in a different language," Vivian offered helpfully as Danny continued to watch him, shaking his head faintly, his eyes glowing with amusement, his smirk still in place.

And he was – oh shit.

"Those are not the kind of words you would have learned in some fancy Spanish classroom, Martin. Those are street words and where's a nice kid like you pick up on that kind of language, huh?"

Martin glanced away, unable to withstand the power of Danny's penetrating gaze combined with The Smirk. God, no wonder people cracked and confessed all to him. It was only years upon painful years of dealing with Victor Fitzgerald that enabled him to come away slightly less scathed than the average person. Huh. Dear old dad was good for something, then. "Didn't realize I was saying anything."

Of course Danny couldn't leave it at that. This was Danny, after all. He probably picked at scabs like he picked on suspects and innocent co-workers who were simply trying not to answer a pointed question that was really none of their business anyway. Except now they were all ganging up on him and why were they so interested to know this?

"You were swearing in Spanish?" Sam sounds generally curious as she wanders over, followed more sedately by Jack who also appeared to beinterested.

"I didn't know you knew Spanish."

Damn Jack. "Uh, yeah."

"So, what? You took Spanish in school?" Danny presses and there's nothing demanding about the question, he just wants to know. And he can deal with that.

"No. I took Latin and French and German."

Danny raises his eyebrows, another question.

"My dad wanted me to take Latin, I didn't. Failed. My mother wanted me to take French, I failed. They forced me into German and failed. They gave up."

"Then how can you speak Spanish?"

And that wasn't a question he particularly wanted to answer, but since they were all staring at him like this was Interrogate Martin Until He Breaks day, he offered almost unwillingly, "Spanish was sort of my first language."

That gets a reaction. Expected that.

"Wait, Spanish was your _first_ language?" Vivian's looking at him like he's suddenly got two heads instead of one. "How did that happen?"

"Yes, Martin. How did that happen?" Danny's smirk has slipped somewhat and he's pressing now, demanding, but Martin had already started to crack before so that doesn't matter so much anymore.

The migraine he felt starting before? Going to be a bad one. He would probably have to curl up in a ball under his desk where it was nice and dark, pop some ear plugs in and think happy thoughts soon. "It was pretty easy, actually. I was speaking Spanish before English. End of story."

"No, no, no. Beginning of story. Now why Spanish? I don't think Victor knows any Spanish unless I am very much mistaken."

Why couldn't they just leave it alone? Not that he could blame them. It was his fault for soundly cursing everything in Spanish, but he couldn't be perfect all the time. "Neither of my parents speaks Spanish." More pressing looks that finally made him add, "Dana spoke Spanish."

"Who's Dana?"

Martin managed a crooked smile. It had to have looked painful by the expressions of their faces. "My, uh, nanny? Though, to be honest I still call her mi mamá."

"You called your nanny mom?" Now Danny's leaning against his desk, a speculative look on his face. And that's all Martin needs, Danny speculating about him. He'd probably draw too many conclusions from that and Martin does not need that. Ever.

"Yeah, well, for I long time I thought she was. Victor's wife is practically a nonentity to me. She didn't really like children. In fact, I think she only recently began liking me at all. Then it was rudely pointed out to me that I was very white by Gelasio and Magali, Dana's sons whom I practically followed everywhere."

Sam was frowning at him. "You were… how old when you came to the realization that you were white?"

A faint blush rose on his cheeks and not for the first time he cursed the color of his skin. "Five."

"How did your parents feel about that? Realizing that their son was speaking Spanish and not English?" Danny butted in before the uncomfortable moment could linger longer than truly necessary.

"Honestly? They didn't notice at first, which is hardly surprising and when they did they were very…" What was the right word? "Unhappy." Like Martin had been earlier, like he still sort of was. Except that he suddenly didn't mind this conversation for some reason. Must be the migraine. Soon he would be shying away from the bright lights and hiding under his desk. Any minute now. "I don't know what they expected since Dana barely spoke English and I assume that means my mother actually raised my sisters because, really, I don't think that happened with them. Maybe she just didn't like me. Third child, guess she got tired of it all by then." (2)

Martin was rambling. Knew it and couldn't quite stop. Something about migraines and not being able to think coherently went hand it hand. "So," what had he been saying? Oh, right. "They tried to get me to speak English instead and that worked for a while. I knew _some_ English because Dana knew _some_ English, but I spoke with a very heavy accent. Which made them get me a speech therapist. I ran through about five of those. I don't think they liked me screaming at them in Spanish for some reason. Or just the screaming part."

"A speech therapist, huh?"

A simple prompting, that was all it took. Martin knew he was gone, knew Danny was taking advantage of his weakness, but he couldn't shut up. He should never have left his pills at home. "Yeah. Eventually they realized that I was capable of speaking in the generally acceptable American accent, I just didn't want to. I didn't want to be white, as evidenced by the fact that I spent as much time in the sun as I possibly could in the attempt to not be white. It never really worked though. I wanted to dye my hair black, too, but my parents swore they'd kill me. They probably would have, too. At least they thought the tanning bed phase, was cute."

The full smirk was back and brighter than ever. Was Danny laughing at him? Yes, yes he was. "Tanning beds? You went to tanning beds? Are you serious?"

"Yes. Call it complete and utter denial, but I didn't want to be associated with them, I didn't want to be a Fitzgerald and I certainly didn't want to be white. That was when they got tired of me and shipped me off to a boarding school at the very first opportunity. Possibly the stupidest idea they ever did because I was fully capable of getting into trouble whereas Dana would never have allowed that. No, wait, scratch that. The stupidest thing they did was try to force me to speak only English and to, well, Americanize me."

Martin realized that Jack, Sam, and Vivian were all staring at him in confusion, but Danny was still smirking – or was that a genuine smile? – at him. It occurred to him then that he had been speaking in Spanish, not English but Martin couldn't recall exactly when he had switched to Spanish.

"So, what? Dana taught you Spanish in general and her sons taught you all of the other words you were saying before we started this conversation?"

He sighed helplessly. "Pretty much."

"Who did I remind you of?"

"Magali," he replied without hesitation.

"That why you had to one-up me that first day?"

Martin nodded. Then he blinked. How the hell did Danny do that? Or was it that Martin wasn't running on all cylinders at the moment?

"Bet they teased you mercilessly, huh?"

"Yeah, but they were like my brothers to me and that's what brothers are for, right? They did back off after a while, when they saw to what measure I was willing to go to attempt to fit in better. Said it didn't matter that I was white. I was still one of them." Martin could still see the younger version of himself hearing those words again and suddenly feeling a weight lift off of him. It didn't matter what he was as long as they could accept him.

Danny leaned a bit closer. "No more tanning beds after that?"

"Didn't need to."

"Is this going to be a thing now?" Sam wanted to know, an annoyed expression on her face. "The two of you holding these conversation where none of the rest of us have any idea what you're saying?"

Danny smirked. "Now that I know we can, that does seem to be a possibility. What do you think, Martin?"

"¿Qué? Yo no hablo inglés." (3)

Samantha rolled her eyes as she and Jack turned their attention back to whatever they had been doing before and Vivian wandered back to her desk. Danny was smiling now, just smiling, not smirking. "You should have told me before."

"Told you what? That I grew up a confused white boy who thought he was Hispanic? That conversation would have gone over well."

Danny's amusement intensified. "It seemed to go over pretty well to me."

And Martin had nothing to say to that. He blamed it all on the migraine.

-The End-

(1) Medication for migraines - prescription or not, take your pick. I almost said "needles" because there are people that sometimes have such severe migraines that they require shots (self-administred), but then I decided against that. No need to make him sound like a drug addict and I didn't want to have to explain within the fic.

(2) No idea the birth order in the Fitzgerald house hold. He's not an only child, I know that. So I gave him sisters.

(3) Translated: What? I don't speak English.

Yes, I'm still capable of writing one shots. Even drabbles. Not that I post those on ffdotnet, but still. This was a ficlet I couldn't shake so now maybe I can get back to my WIPs – yes, I really am attempting to work on those and I'm trying really really hard not to start anything new. Except this. And maybe a few others.


End file.
